A WORD ABOUT AUTO SECURITY
With Richard Biscevic, California Ravelco
Your readers have lots of choices about auto security. They should be aware of some of the shortfalls regarding security when making their choices.
At some level, we all know that no one pays attention to car alarms. How many times have you gone to the mall and heard an annoying car alarm and actually thought someone was breaking into a car? And how many times have you actually called the police when hearing a car alarm? "Never" is the most common answer to both questions. If that is the case, why spend money on something you know not to work?
Sirens and blinking lights do nothing to deter a thief. Someone bold enough to break a window or door lock in order to get in a car and take a leather jacket, an iPod, or even a $5 bill, is not afraid of a siren or blinking light. They know no one will pay attention to it. They'll bust open the door lock, grab what they want and go. A siren will not protect the contents of your car. If they want the car, they have a number of avenues of accomplishing that task.
Unfortunately, alarms are very easy to defeat. What I'm going to tell you is stuff car thieves already know, but consumers may not.
All car alarms use the switch in the door jam (the one that turns theinterior light on). When the thief opens the door and the alarm goes off, they can just break the door switch, close the door and leave. The owner comes out, sees nothing is wrong with the car, and resets the alarm. The thief comes back later, opens the car door, and because the switch is broken, no alarm. It is that simple!
If the car is equipped with a motion sensor, sometimes a thief will set the alarm off and then hide repeatedly. Each time the owner comes out and sees nothing is wrong with the car. The owner is eventually worn down, and thinking something is wrong with the alarm, turns it off. The thief is then free to hotwire the car and drive away.
If they don't want to come back later, they just drop underneath the dash, find the two wires going from the alarm through the hole in the fire wall and clip them. The siren is silenced. The more skilled thieves find the main box and clip the wires right there. (I've heard stories from customers of thieves breaking into the car to steal the alarm module advertised on their window!) And we haven't even talked about code grabbers that are readily available on the Internet!
One of the main problems with alarms is that all their wires are exposed and connected right underneath the dash. That is the first place thieves look to defeat any car security, and it is the first place alarm installers put the computers. And unfortunately, once a thief learns how to defeat one brand of car alarm, they can defeat almost all of them.
So given that car alarms do not deter thieves from stealing the contents of the car, are easy to defeat, and do not stop a thief from stealing the car, why get an alarm as the first layer of defense? People should first protect the most valuable asset: the car itself.
So how about tracking devices? GPS-based systems require the antenna be exposed to the sky, as they can not be mounted under metal. Without the antenna, the satellite can not see the car. This makes them vulnerable to having the GPS antenna broken off. For OEM installed systems, this is an obvious task as the antenna is mounted clearly on the leading or trailing edge of the roof. Other systems mount in 'hidden' locations, but they all must be exposed to the sky, and therefore their hiding places are limited. Without the antenna, a GPS-based tracking system is ineffective.
Radio-based systems used by police first require the police to have the time to locate your car. In heavily populated areas, this could take hours in the best case scenario. When a small crew can strip a car in less than eight minutes using just hand tools, why let them take the car in the first place? If the thief has parked the car in an underground garage, a thickly walled structure, or shipping container, odds are the radio waves will not be able to penetrate it. Just look at your cell phone. If you don't have a signal, odds are that a radio based system won't find a car where you are. The thief can also just drive your car out of range. Even the most popular tracking system only has statewide coverage (defined as over 80 percent of the population) in 8 of the 50 states!
The bottom line is that tracking systems are designed to get your car back AFTER it has been stolen. The Ravelco Anti-Theft Device prevents the car from being stolen in the first place. Would you rather get a car back after a thief has been able to cherry pick the parts off your car, or prevent them from taking it in the first place? Only a very small number of cars are stolen in the U.S. by being towed away. Most tow truck operators don't want to risk losing their license. It's less obvious and faster to hot wire a car and drive it away.
That is where the Ravelco Anti-Theft Device excels. The Ravelco Anti-Theft Device has been around for nearly 30 years, has sold over 3,500,000 units world wide, and we've never had a reported theft by bypassing the Ravelco.The Ravelco Anti-Theft Device is attached to a number of wires your engine requires to run. You then have the ability to disconnect those wires by pulling the plug out of the Ravelco. It's just like taking a piece of your engine with you. And because there is no computer to monitor the car, the Ravelco does not require electricity to operate; therefore there is no drain on the car's battery. The Ravelco can be mounted in or under the dash where it is easy for the driver to get to. It can even be mounted out of sight under the dash. Visible or concealed, it is just as effective.
With the Ravelco, there are no master plugs. And with over 100,000 combinations, there is no way for a thief to guess which combination of pins go to which circuit. The driver simply inserts the plug to start the car and drives away. When they're done, they turn the car off, and pull the plug out. Even with the ignition key, the car will not start if the Ravelco plug is not inserted.
We protect the Ravelco wires under the dash with steel conduit, and inside the engine compartment we disguise all the wires to look like the factory's original wires. We hide all the connections to the car's electrical system. Even if a would-be thief got access to the wires, they're all the same color, so it's a guessing game as to which wires go together. Thieves have a short time frame to work in. Every minute they spend trying to steal a car, they are more likely to be caught. They want to get in and out in less than five minutes. If they can't, they will give up and try the next car.
The Ravelco Anti-Theft Device is the best auto security because it does exactly what it is designed to do: the Ravelco prevents the car from being stolen. No bells or whistles, just 100 percent effective protection from hot wiring your vehicle.
Security systems I'd recommend if I didn't work with Ravelco:
#1- The Ravelco. I'd have this on all my cars even if I didn't work for the company.
#2- A cheap paging alarm. A siren isn't going to scare anyone. I'd call the police as I sure would hate to confront a thief. I don't like my odds in a gun fight or legal battle afterward.
#3- I'd remove some engine component to disable it. This gets tiring pretty fast, and I'd get lazy after a while. Besides, clubs and brake locks are cumbersome and easily defeated. I work too hard to waste my money on them.
#4- An after-the-fact tracking system.
#5- VIN etching. In the very low-percent chance the parts ever turn up.